The Sims
What is "The Sims" The most relevant game to life being a game would most likely be The Sims, The Sims 2, The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 by EA Maxis. In this game, you have the ability to control any of the preset households or composing your own by creating every person or, in this case, sim, separately. In the game you are able to switch to individual people of the household and decide what they are going to do, choose their actions. This isn’t just whatever you want them to do because, much like a more simplified version of real people, they have needs to manage. Not only do you have to manage their needs such as hunger, sleep and bladder but also their career. You need to allow them to improve certain skills needed for them to do what you want them to do. For example, in the scientist career, you will need to improve their logic skill. The other last thing you will have to manage are relationships. Keeping up relationships is important since the sim also has social needs. Relationships will also allow them to marry and start their own family. The lifespan of one sim goes from a new-born to an elde or possibly even until the afterlife. What does "The Sims" have to do with "Life is a game: live it well" The game is clearly not a realistic simulation of what real life is but that would make it too complicated and often less fun. The fact you can do things there you can’t do in real life is what makes it a game that’s interesting to play. But from the managing perspective, it does a good job to make you realise how much planning and management is needed to take control of a life. Granted in The Sim, you can buy furniture on the spot as long as you have the money, instead of going out to buy it and maybe assemble it. But it does show how stressful the managing can be, especially considering it leaves out big parts of what is part of real life. Another aspect in the game is building. You can construct buildings on plots and make a house or a public venture. There in you can decorate, paint the walls and place furniture. This gives the player a level of control where they aren’t just living another life. The player is taking control over a world and the virtual lives in it, as it were. If you are like me, you can even find ways for your sim to die by choices you make. This level of control the game offers is, in my eyes, part of why it is so appealing. A lot of people like the feeling of being in full control. This might be because it’s just not possible or just plainly not morally right to do these things in real life, if you even could. Once people realise they are in control they might do things they wouldn’t have done otherwise. You are able to assign different personalities to different sims if you chose to create them and because of this they will interact with things differently. So in the end, The Sims is a very basic simulation of real life, if even that. It’s a quirky reconstruction to make it more fun and silly at times. One aspect that The Sims has that is exactly the same as in real life is the lack of an overarching story or plot. You set your own goals. You can’t finish the game, but you can achieve things in it. To create a legacy is part of the fun in the game and to some it is their goal to leave a mark in real life. The concept of there not being a main goal is a bit controversial since it ties in with the question what the meaning of life is. As with life, the goal, or meaning of it all, is up to the choice of the person in control. Category:Life is a game: Live it well